A ribbon fiber optic cable is a type of multifiber cable in which fibers are grouped into “ribbons,” i.e., flat, ribbon-like structures formed by embedding a plurality of fibers in parallel in a plastic matrix. Fiber ribbons are commonly spliced together using a mass fusion splicer, which performs all of the individual fiber splices in parallel.
Currently available fiber ribbons typically have a fiber spacing of 250 μm, center-to-center. Recently, in order to increase fiber density, a ribbon fiber has been developed in which the fiber spacing has been reduced to 200 μm. The new design improves the data transmission capacity of a fiber ribbon cable in order to meet the fast-growing construction demands of data centers and Web 2.0-type networks.
There are times when a technician working in the field must splice a ribbon with a 200 μm fiber spacing to a ribbon having a 250 μm spacing. However, currently available mass fusion splicers are unable to perform such a splice.